I guess I just don't understand why you waste your time and energy on caring about any of this.

(edit): I actually think I might understand, however, if you want to address my statement, I would be interested in hearing it. I want to hear your POV.

From thinking about it, I can understand why you would want to stand up to what you feel is hypocrisy.* I think I can also understand why you feel passionate about it.

See, I am only now learning to understand what I value as a person, and I am only now learning that I have the right to defend my personal values. Without going into it, let's just say my home enviroment (starting as soon as I came home from the hospital no doubt) was not inducive to becoming a full fledged person with values that I was willing to stand up for. In fact, whenever I do talk about my opinions and values, I feel super guilty which leads to other negative feelins (but luckily, no longer negative actions!

My point is: I can respect your reasons.

My personal value is stand up for people when I feel they are being bullied, and yes, I do feel that sometimes you bully JTT.

In conclusion: I have learned a lot from this exchange and will grow. I shall also bow out of the discussion. I don't want to be some Marge Simpson squirrel telling people what to do.

*I am not going to say if it's hypocrisy either way. I don't have enough knowledge on the entire situation to feel confident making an assertion.

I'm sorry I changed my mind about occasionally voicing my opinion in the politics thread. I have tried to be respectful, even while disagreeing with pretty much everyone there, in my occasional interactions on the thread.

I guess I'll have be more careful in choosing when and where on the forum I should feel free to post.

I'm sure Imrahil will let me know when I cross the line.

I know I said I would stay out of it, but in the interest of neutrality....

Im has no power over you.I, as another forum meber, would like you to post whatever and wherever you feel like.I feel that statements like the ones I quoted are antagonizing....so now I have to ask, why are you wasting time/energy on anything Im thinks?

As far as I can tell, you are both fine human beings. Yea, you guys disagree, and I have no problems with that. I just get uncomfortable when the back and forth continues.

So, in the immortal words of that dude from Knocked Up, "Let's do all the drugs!*"

I'm going to ramble in a moddy fashion for a bit because I feel like I should use my mod position for more than shutting down spambots and stickying lists every once in a while.

If you're here to enjoy yourself, and you all should be, here are some things that are common-sense but easy to forget:

Everyone here is free to post whatever and wherever they choose, so long as they meet the rules here: http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php?topic=23746.0 . You don't have to agree with everyone else, and you are always free to express your disenting opinion.

That said, there are certain viewpoints that dominate this forum. People here tend to be a bit on the liberal side, and lean in an atheistic sort of direction. If you don't mind that, they're a wonderful group of people to chat with. If you have a problem with those things to the point where it really irks you, then it's best to either avoid the polarizing topic in question or prepare to hear a lot of things you don't agree with. If you must speak, prepare to be disagreed with.

And that little bit of advice goes to those in the majority, too. Anything you throw out that could be considered a "viewpoint" might cause someone to speak up with another opinion. This is normal. They aren't (usually) trolls. You needn't squash them. You can attempt to debate the issue if you love to debate such issues, and some awesome bits of insight can come out of those discussions.

In the end, whatever reason you decided to access the forum, you probably intended to have a good time and discuss things you enjoy discussing. If you aren't enjoying a discussion, you can pick one of the 22,456 other discussions available on these forums. If enjoying these forums means avoiding any threads about politics, religion, or rudimentary lathes (I'M BRINGING IT BACK!), then do that. You won't miss much and there's plenty going on elsewhere.

I ordered my wedding band on Etsy the other day. The company who makes the rings was tooting the fact that their rings are not made on a computerized lathe, and were instead made on a manual lathe so that each piece is unique.

I really wanted to ask them if that made their lathe more rudimentary, but I didn't. Missed opportunity. Sure sounds rudimentary to me though.

The company who makes the rings was tooting the fact that their rings are not made on a computerized lathe, and were instead made on a manual lathe so that each piece is unique.

Ha, unless it's hand cranked or foot powered it is very possible to make identical items on a "manual" lathe.

But I guess if you filed off the numbers on the indicator circles it would make it more difficult, but even then if all you do all day is make rings it wouldn't take long to learn how to make identical items. Heck, even people making wood turnings by hand can learn to do it. After a while it becomes elementary,,, eh, rudimentary,,, you know, second nature....

The company who makes the rings was tooting the fact that their rings are not made on a computerized lathe, and were instead made on a manual lathe so that each piece is unique.

Ha, unless it's hand cranked or foot powered it is very possible to make identical items on a "manual" lathe.

But I guess if you filed off the numbers on the indicator circles it would make it more difficult, but even then if all you do all day is make rings it wouldn't take long to learn how to make identical items. Heck, even people making wood turnings by hand can learn to do it. After a while it becomes elementary,,, eh, rudimentary,,, you know, second nature....

I'm sure the rings are 99.5% identical, but not 100%, which they are trying to sell as "unique". I'm excited to get it though, here's a picture.